


A singular lapse of judgement

by mayoho



Category: Twin Peaks
Genre: F/M, Guilt, Peking duck, Teen for language cause Diane, informed consenting adults engage in a questionably healthy relationship, jazz dancing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-07-08 09:42:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15927824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayoho/pseuds/mayoho
Summary: In My Life, My Tapes, Diane and Cooper go on a singular date. This is (a version of) that story.





	A singular lapse of judgement

**Author's Note:**

> More of my ongoing exploration of the question "does Cooper love Diane?" and "what does love even mean anyway?"
> 
> This doesn't really match up with the My Life, My Tapes timeline, but watch me not care. But I do apologize to anyone who has close ties to Philly--I only spent a few minutes looking at a map and haven't visited in years.

Cooper stares at her, guilt stricken. Not the contrite, schoolboy caught with his hand in the cookie jar face he makes when he doesn’t quite live up to his Boy Scout image. Real, painful guilt. Diane almost says no. To let him off the hook. To side-step this terrible, selfish thing he’s done. But some days it seems like she’s a glutton for punishment. 

“Given how much I put up with around here, dinner is the least you could do.”

He slips into his role--Cary Grant to her Audrey Hepburn--without missing a beat. He leans nearer, a proprietary hand on her desk. “Tonight.”

Fuck. Diane is so fucked. She brushes a lock of hair behind her ear, taking her time, languid and seductive, twisting her wrist across her face like a geisha with a fan. She pitches her voice low--she can give as good (or better) than she gets. “Eight o’clock sharp.”

His smile could melt the polar ice caps. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” Cooper tips his imaginary hat and spins around the door frame--an appropriately dramatic exist. 

It’s been almost three months. Not since Pittsburgh, but since Cooper’s smiles had lost their brittle edge. She still catches him, when he thinks no one will see, wrapping himself in a blanket of melancholy, looking lost and lonely out into the distance. But when he smiles now, it’s real; Diane knows him well enough to know. That doesn’t make this a good idea. She pushes the thought away. She will make the most of this if it kills them both.

The rest of the day passes in a nervous, fluttery blur. At least Cooper had the courtesy to ask her on an ill advised dinner date with only two hours left until she could make herself scarce. She ignores the stack of reports next to her typewriter and plans her outfit--a Cinderella blue shift dress, a pearl choker and matching bracelet, the strappy, teak heels she never wears (Cooper is tall enough that she can wear heels). Then she’ll paint her nails neon orange and electric green and wear an artful smudge of deep blue eyeshadow under her winged eyeliner because she can only do so much cute and sweet before it starts to feel cloying. 

Diane is a pathetic schoolgirl with a pathetic schoolgirl crush. She should feel ashamed, but she finds she doesn’t have it in her. 

 

Cooper buzzes the door of Diane’s apartment building at exactly eight o’clock, just as she expected. He’s standing on her doorstep in a suit, nearly indistinguishable from the one he was wearing at the office, but some instinct tells Diane he has changed, and he’s lost the tie. He’s holding a singular yellow rose. She wants to shake him by the shoulders and demand to know what he means by this. By the look on his face he knows it--fucking bastard--so she graciously accepts his gift while he gives her an appreciative once over. Her shapeless linen dress clings to her body as she cocks her hip to the side; it’s her favorite trick. She raises an eyebrow and treats him to a predatory smirk. His eyes widen, but, to his credit, he doesn’t blush. 

“Shall we?” Cooper holds out a hand to help her down the steps. Such a gentleman, and he manages it without a hint of irony. It scares Diane that the gesture doesn’t feel oppressive, that she can’t help but smile when she takes his hand. 

They head for the trolley line. Cooper doesn’t own a car, and, the quirky person that he is, much prefers public transportation to taxis. They wait in companionable silence until Cooper reaches for the rose stem threaded through her fingers. 

“May I?” he asks. Diane nods even though she had no idea what he intends to do. 

Cooper pulls out a pocket knife, cuts the stem short, and carefully twists the rose into Diane’s hair. When he takes a step back to admire his handy work, he looks so fucking pleased with himself that Diane can’t help but double over with laughter. Cooper’s eyes squint shut as he smiles too wide. It’s all so distracting they nearly forget to board the trolley. 

The couple take the nearly empty trolley through Center City to the edge of Chinatown. Diane is not terribly surprised--Cooper’s always had a thing for the orient. 

Diane loops her arm through Cooper’s when they disembark and he practically drags her along--a childish spring in his step--to a building with a pavilion styled facade. At first glance, it seems tacky, but the wood is old--worn but well cared for. 

Inside is dim and still. Dark wooden walls and furniture, soft overhead light supplemented with candles on the tables, beaded curtains, the soft tinkle of a fountain somewhere in the back, the few patrons sipping from cups of tea. Diane feels like an intruder, but an older gentleman walks towards them and smiles when he sees Cooper. They exchange pleasantries in a foreign language--by the sound and context, Diane would guess Mandarin. She watches as Cooper frowns when the man speaks too quickly. He gives Cooper a bemused grin and switches to slightly broken English as he guides them to a table in the corner.

Cooper orders for them both without looking at the menu--a pot of oolong tea and peking duck. 

He leans towards her, voice low to match the calm hush of the restaurant, and delivers a lecture on the intricate, days long preparation of the fowl they are about to eat. She hates to be lectured, but she can’t help making an exception for Cooper; it’s the way his face lights up with mock offense at her sarcastic interruptions. 

The peking duck, when it arrives, is the most ridiculous, indulgent, rich, and delicious thing she has ever eaten, but it’s lost on her. It doesn’t compared to watching Cooper’s face in the candle light.

 

“We should go dancing,” Diane says as Cooper is settling the check. It’s preposterous; for one thing, she might be too full to stand up, and for another, she already knows how this ends (the same way it started, with agonizing guilt). She holds Cooper’s gaze, like this is completely reasonable. If he’s going to break her heart she might as well get in all the fun she can before hand. 

It’s a surprised when he meets her eyes and says “Oh-kay” with the slightly nasal Northwestern drawl he must have picked up from Gordon. Diane’s in control now, so they walk a few blocks south to hail a cab. She takes him to a hole in the wall jazz club with a live band because sometimes she thinks Cooper, with his dark suit and slicked hair, ought to have come of age in the 20s. 

She grabs them both gin and tonics at the bar. Cooper is already swaying in time with the music when Diane makes her way back to him. A small part of her had suspected (and maybe even hoped) that dancing might catch Cooper wrong footed and awkward. He’s an inflexible pillar of responsibility--it would only make sense. But he’s also comfortable in his own body and endlessly receptive to the world around him--Cooper, infuriatingly, belongs everywhere doing anything. 

He frowns thoughtfully when he takes a sip of the drink Diane hands him, but he face settles into a half smile. She hadn’t considered what he would like--he’s stuck with gin and tonic regardless. As far as Diane is concerned, it’s the only acceptable drink for the ambience. 

The harsh noise of the jazz band has a similar effect to the quiet of the restaurant. The rest of the world drops away, intractably drawing them together. Though Diane will never remember which of them reached out first, the feeling of her arms around Cooper’s neck, their hair brushing together, his hand pressed to the small of her back is indelibly carved into her memory. They dance for ages and no time at all until they are forced out onto the street along with the last of the club’s patrons.

Diane’s head feels pillowed by the lingering aftershock of the band’s music as they walk back to her apartment, hands twined together. Something begins to shift--it stops being thoughtlessly easy to hold Cooper’s hand--a block from their destination. He turns to her, and Diane finds herself face to face with all of Cooper’s solemn, smoldering intensity. He kisses her like she’s as necessary as breathing, pushing her against the brick of the building with the force of it. She doesn’t know how she will go on knowing what this feels like (exactly like she always has, of course). 

Cooper pulls away, his mouth bruised red, and doesn’t meet her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“Fuck you.” Diane hopes he understands that she means ‘Don’t apologize, I wanted this,’ and ‘I’m sorry doesn’t begin to cut it, you unbelievable bastard,’ in equal measures. 

His smile is tight when he flicks up his eyes to meet hers. She pulls him into a crushingly tight hug before she pushes her way back into her building, leaving Cooper standing on the stoop. 

 

Cloistered away in her apartment, she plucks the yellow rose from behind her ear, cradles it in her cupped palms, and drops it into a small bowl of water. Whatever Cooper meant by it, at least it isn’t fucking blue.

**Author's Note:**

> Usually, I have a lot of author's notes, but since this is so (relatively for me) long, I think I said everything I was supposed to in the fic itself. 
> 
> Con-crit welcome!
> 
> (Also, thanks to all of you who posted Twin Peaks fic in the last week or so, getting to read new fic is 100% what inspired me to write more myself.)


End file.
